2 comments:

My favorite covers in this period are #206, 208, 210 and 212. Simple, attractive, with little clutter some of the other covers are burdened with. I believe Jack designed the covers he edited, but I could be wrong.

I enjoyed much of Kirby's run, although there were gaps in storytelling and plotting. What I enjoyed most in these stories was his imagination - even at this point he invented Arnim Zola, a character that has been used frequently and even appeared in the Cap movie!

Kirby's stories were actually getting more interesting as he continued, and I was disappointed when he left the strip. Things went back to the status quo and that was boring.

Letters pages were probably one of the last elements in the production process, so there probably wasn't time to send letters to Kirby to look over and reply to. Unlike when he was at DC, when he had Evanier and Sherman to assist in that area, I don't thin Kirby had anyone working in that capacity in 1975-78. I also suspect that Marvel was not run as efficiently as DC in this period and wouldn't have gotten letters to Kirby in time for him to handle. Still, I don't think fan letters had that much effect on sales. If the books had sold well they would have continued with Kirby.

Unfortunately it looked like Kirby's work was not selling as it had in the 1960's. Kirby's figures were not as well defined and his writing style was clunky. He was still miles ahead of many of his peers, and always interesting, but he was an odd fit, removed from the Marvel "universe" (by his own desires, mainly) he stood alone. At this point I suspect he would have been best served working apart from Marvel and continuity, presenting his own creations. Unfortunately outlets for independent work would not appear until many years later, when Kirby's art became even more abstract and his storytelling more unfocused. Ah, what could have been!

STUDIO 77

About the artist:

From 1985 to 2000 A.D. (little joke there), I contributed to a variety of high profile comics and magazines for various companies.

For IPC/FLEETWAY/EGMONT, I freelanced as a lettering and logo artiston various weekly comics and monthly magazines, and also as a resize comic artistandspot illustratoron pocket books, summer specials and annuals.

ForMARVEL U.K., BLACK LIBRARY, REDAN and USBORNE BOOKS, I again freelanced as a lettering artist, also working as arestoration artistfor MARVEL U.S., restoring and re-creating certain pages of JACK KIRBY art for their MARVEL MASTERWORKS editions.

I also lettered the MARVELMAN sample pages submitted to MARVEL U.S. when they were considering acquiring the character, which - as we all now know - they DID.

Supplied comic strips, cartoons and illustrated advertisements for local business campaigns and newspaper publication on a professional basis since the age of 16. Did my first paid art job for publication at 14 or 15 for Lanarkshire Education Board.

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